


All Unquiet Things

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesty, Animal Death, Car Accidents, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, TAZ Amnesty, its a motorcycle and a deer so, loosely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 07:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: "Aubrey Little hates death. Animal, human, whatever. She’s always been careful when riding her bike. There’s been a few close cases with squirrels and occasionally a raccoon, but she’s never hit anything before."





	All Unquiet Things

Aubrey Little hates death. Animal, human, whatever. She doesn’t eat meat when she gets the chance, but living on the road travelling around with a limited amount of money made that hard sometimes. Now here in Kepler, it’s a little bit easier to stay away from meat, and if she eats it, she usually knows where it came from and how it lived.

Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, is also a side effect of this. Testing facilities are gross, she hates them, and when the chance arose for her to rescue at least one of the rabbits, she took it. He’s been very happy with her since.

When her mom died, burning house collapsing around her, it only added to that hatred of death. Her mom was wonderful. She loved her so much. Why did she have to die? What did she do to deserve that? Burning to death in her own home.

She’s always been careful when riding her bike. There’s horror stories about hitting animals, bikers wiping out, animals not dying fully, over correcting and dying, ruining the bike to the point of almost no repair. She doesn’t want any of that. Living near woods keeps her vigilant, but she doesn’t pay attention always. There’s been a few close cases with squirrels and occasionally a raccoon, but she’s never hit anything before.

“I’m headed down to the grocery store. Does anyone need anything?” She calls, strapping her helmet on and adjusting her boots.

“Green onions,” Barclay calls from the kitchen. She notes that in her brain.

“Chocolate ice cream?” Dani asks from her spot on the couch. Dr. Bonkers is next to her, head in her lap.

She waits a second for anyone else to throw in their requests before confirming. “Alright, green onions and chocolate ice cream. Anything else?”

She’s met with silence and she nods. “Alright! Be back in like twenty minutes.”

Aubrey hops on her bike, revving it up and riding down the hill the Lodge sits on. Leo Tarkesian’s grocery store is about a five minute drive, barring any roadwork or traffic, both of which seem to be a rarity here. It’s a decently nice day. She doesn’t have on a jacket and the wind from driving keeps her sufficiently cool. It’s a little hot resting in one spot for a while, but the streetlights here are fast.

There are a few other shoppers in Leo’s store and Aubrey grabs a basket. Green onions are closest to the door, fresh produce right up in the front. Next she grabs some bagels, just because that’s what she wants right now, along with some cream cheese. She pops in the chocolate ice cream and, just for some fun crunch, grabs a bag of coconut flakes.

“Hey Aubrey,” Leo Tarkesian greets as she comes up to the registers. He’s at a check stand today, seated on the stool he keeps behind the counter.

“Hi Mr. Tarkesian!” She says, placing the basket on the belt.

“Picking up food for the Lodge or for yourself?”

“Both,” she answers, pulling out her wallet as he finishes ringing her up. “The onions and the ice cream are for the Lodge, but the rest is for me.”

“Nice. Alright. Twelve seventy two is gonna be your total.”

She hands him a ten and a five and shoves the change back in her wallet easily. He hands her the bag and she loops it onto her wrist.

“See you later, Mr. Tarkesian! Have a good day!”

“You too, Aubrey,” he calls as she leaves, readying up for the next customer whose name she can’t remember right now.

She keeps the bag hooked on her arm as she hops back on her bike and pulls her helmet on. The rumble of the engine against her legs is familiar as she reverses out of the parking spot and back onto the main road, turning onto the second left to get back to the Lodge.

Aubrey is wondering if coconut flakes would be good on chocolate ice cream when the trees to her left move. She barely has time to register the deer before it jumps in front of her. She tries to swerve around it, but her bike twists and she goes careening full force diagonally into it.

Her bag hooks onto the handle as she’s mildly flung off the bike, keeping her connected for a moment and yanking at her arm. Her head smacks the ground and she skids forward with her bike, hearing a thing or two crack under her, and then they stop moving.

The pavement is warm beneath her, heated from the sun all day. She can feel it through her clothes. There’s a horrible noise coming from behind her, a cut off wail that devolves into labored breathing. Aubrey looks up, head swimming under her helmet, and looks for the source of the noise.

The deer twitches in the street, grunting as it tries to stand and fails. There’s blood, broken legs, a scraped up side.

Aubrey wants to vomit.

She untangles her arm from the bag, barely feeling the pain in it when she sits up. Her head protests, swimming dangerously, black spots emerging in her vision. It’s suffering. She hit it, broke it, and now it’s not dead, lying on the ground, unable to move. It whines again, a horrifying noise, and Aubrey feels her stomach lurch.

All she can do is sit there, watching, waiting for it to finally die. It doesn’t, twitching and groaning in the street, wanting to leave. She pulls off her helmet with her good hand, not fully registering that the other one isn’t doing too hot. The sun pounds at her eyes, headache swinging a hammer at her skull.

Something like panic grips out her throat and she lets out a gasping sob, body shaking as she watches the deer not die, crying out for help. She moves to stand but her ankle gives out under her, screaming in pain. A wave of realization swells over her that her body is hurting, something wrong with her ankle, her arm, the top of her arm and her shoulder. Two of those ache, sharp, deep, and one stings like she’s poured rubbing alcohol over it. She’s not sure what’s what, just a big haze of hurt.

She pulls her good knee up and drops her head onto it, eyes and throat twinging as she cries. Her headache hikes up and she wails into her pants.

With no idea of what to do, she sits. Waits. Listens to the deer let out hurt noises, just like her. They’re the same. They’re the same. She slumps back onto the ground sideways, resting on the shoulder that doesn’t hurt, face pressed into the pavement. She cries uselessly alongside it, leg hurting, arm hurting, head hurting.

Something trickles past her, brown and cold. The ice cream, she realizes. It’s open, melting into the hot pavement. She’ll have to get Dani more later. Everything’s swimming and she sobs against the concrete, face pressed almost fully into it. The deer sobs too.

The sound of a car coming past floats into her brain, along with the sound of it stopping and a door slamming open and shut. She doesn’t move, gasps into the rough road beneath her.

“Aubrey?” Comes frantic, concerned, coming closer. “Jesus shit, are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer him, crying into the ground. She hit the deer. It’s still not dead. It’s suffering. They have to suffer together.

“Fuck. Dammit.” He lifts her gently, careful of her bad arm, pulls her into sitting. She opens her eyes, finds Duck staring back at her.

“It’s alive,” she aches out. “It’s hurting, it’s alive. I hit it and it’s still alive.”

“I’ll deal with that in a second. Are you alright? Your shoulder’s all messed up looking.”

She shakes her head, gets dizzy, almost vomits into her lap, and the sits still, weeping silently. He lets go of her and steps over to the deer.

She doesn’t look, but she hears the shushing noises he makes to it, hears the snap and the silence that follows. She slumps back onto the ground again, gasping her sobs into the road.

“Hey, hey hey hey it’s okay, Aubrey it’s fine. It’s not hurting anymore, okay?”

“I killed it,” she says into the road. “I killed it I hit it.”

“You gotta tell me if you’re not okay. Did you break anything? Do we need to go to the hospital?”

She raises her left arm and her right leg for inspection but doesn’t get up to move. He touches her gingerly, pressing on a couple things. She gasps in pain, no longer hyper focused on the deer.

“Your ankle’s just sprained, I think, but I’m not sure on your arm. I don’t think it’s broken but I’m really not sure. We should probably go to the hospital.”

“No,” she moans, pulling her limbs back. “Not the hospital. I’m fine.”

“You’re really not. You’ve got some nasty road burn on your shoulder and I really don’t know about your arm. I can take you back to the Lodge, but I’d feel better if we went to the hospital.”

“Barclay’s waiting on the onions,” she says, shoving herself up. “I gotta get Dani new ice cream.”

“Well that’s gotta wait,” he says. “Really… we should go.”

“’m fine.” Her head swims and she drops it, closing her eyes. Taking deep breaths hurts a bit, but it’s fine. She’s fine. “Probably fractured at the most. I just gotta… I gotta rest it. Ice it. It’ll be okay.”

“Aubrey…”

“C’mon, Duck. I’ll just have Barclay look at it. He’s good with this. He’s great at first aid.“ Her head is dizzy dizzy dizzy as she tries to stand, refusing to put her weight on the bad foot. She looks at the deer out of the corner of her eye and falls back down, staring at it. Its head sits at a bad angle, legs still broken, blood drying on its fur. A fresh wave of tears hits her.

“If Barclay says it’s broken, we’re going to the hospital,” Duck says, and Aubrey nods, face wet.

He pushes the bike into the back of his truck, grabbing the bag of groceries. The ice cream had fallen out, top popped off. He puts that in the stray plastic bag he pulls from his truck. After that he helps her up, careful of her arm, helping her lean her weight on him.

The deer stays in the middle of the road and she slumps into her knees in the truck, trying not to think about it.

The drive up to the Lodge is uneventful, no deer jumping in front of them now. She doesn’t watch, body still folded up, head as far down as she can make it go. When the truck rolls to a stop, she unbuckles and grabs the bag, opening her door. Duck’s trying to get out of the truck before her, but she stands on her one good foot, leaning against the truck.

“Hey, let me help you—”

“I’m good, I got it,” she grits out, head swimming. Her helmet is inside of the truck, but she doesn’t need it. She hops forward and almost falls over. Duck grabs her and keeps her upright.

“You’re not good and you don’t got it,” he grumbles out. “Just let me help you inside and then I’ll let you handle it.”

She nods, regretting it as her head pounds. They hobble forward slowly, Aubrey hopping, resenting it as it jostles her head, hiking up her headache.

The door opens and the cool air hits her like relief.

“Welcome back,” comes from the kitchen. Barclay’s clearly coming out to greet her. “That took way longer than twenty minutes. Everything al—”

He cuts off when he sees her leaning on Duck, loosely holding the grocery bag. She thrusts it out to him.

“I got the green onions,” she says. Duck snorts next to her, letting up on his grip.

“Oh my god,” Dani says, standing. Jake turns to see what’s happening and she watches his eyes go wide. “What happened?”

“Hit a deer,” she mumbles, and then scrunches up her face to keep from crying again. Everything hurts now, and she doesn’t need to feel guilty on top of it.

“Are you hurt?” Barclay asks.

“Her ankles sprained and her shoulder’s all roughed up from skidding on it I think. I dunno about her arm. She didn’t wanna go to the hospital,” Duck says.

“I can answer for myself,” she grits out, and then she covers her eyes with her hand. The artificial light in here makes them ache.

“Did you hit your head?” Dani asks, suddenly in front of her.

“Helmet took it, but ‘m a little dizzy I guess,” she says, trying not to worry anyone. She doesn’t need any more of this. She can take care of herself. She’s been taking care of herself for three years now.

“Sit her down,” Barclay says. “I wanna look at her arm and her eyes.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says, but Duck pulls her gently forward anyway. “I’m not- I’m not fucking dying.”

“No one said you were, but you’re hurt,” Duck says, sitting her on the nearest couch. “And you said you’d let Barclay look at it.”

She grimaces, uncovering her eyes. Barclay grabs her bad arm, turning it over and pressing on a couple things. She bites her lip at the pain and she knows he notes that.

“I think it might be a little fracture, but definitely nothing big. If you want to go to the hospital and get a cast, we can, but I can wrap it for you and ice it and see if that doesn’t help first.”

“Door number two,” she says, shaking her head out to clear it. It’s a mistake and she closes her eyes to center herself again.

“Open your eyes?”

She does and he stares at them, scrutinizing. “Mild concussion. Just don’t go to sleep right away. You might throw up later if you eat something, but you should still eat.”

“M’kay,” she says.

“What about her shoulder?” Dani asks anxiously, sitting next to her on the couch.

Barclay turns her a bit, pulling her shirt away from where it sticks to the scraped up skin. “Surprisingly not horrible. I mean it sucks and it’s bad, don’t get me wrong, but way better than it could have been all things considered. Jake, you wanna get me some ice and the first aid kit?”

“On it,” he says, and she doesn’t watch him leave the room, staring at the floor. A laugh bubbles up and out of her.

“What’s funny?” Duck asks.

“Coolice is getting ice,” she snickers out, headache swelling.

Dani stifles down a laugh next to her and she smiles. Jake doesn’t take long, coming back with some ice in a few towels and the big first aid kit they keep here. Barclay wraps her ankle first, loose enough that she can still feel it but still tight. He props her leg up and sets the ice on it. The throbbing goes down pretty quickly. Next her wrist and arm. The same thing, wrapped tight but not too tight, ice plopped onto it after.

“Alright,” he says before starting on her shoulder. “Your shirt’s pretty messed up, and I’m probably gonna have to cut it away. You okay with that?”

“Mhm,” she says. This is one of her lounge around shirts. She only went out in it because it didn’t have any terrible stains on it. She’ll miss it, it’s one of the more comfortable ones, but it’s fine if it gets cut up.

He snips it away from her shoulder and then sets to work cleaning. It stings a lot, and she grits her teeth and closes her eyes. Barclay mutters out a distracted apology, focused on her shoulder.

It takes a while and he pulls some grit out of her shoulder. When it’s done, her shoulder stings worse than before, but at least she knows it’s clean now. He wraps it up in a frankly ridiculous amount of gauze wrap and then sits back.

“Alright. We should be good. Anything other than your head hurt now?”

“Shoulder stings a bunch, but other than that no,” she says, blinking her eyes closed tightly for a moment. “Light’s bright.”

Someone turns the lights off and turns on a lamp across the room and her headache gets marginally better.

“You feeling better?” Duck asks her from the side of the couch, leaning on it.

“Mhm,” she says, definitely not thinking about the deer. It’s still sitting there, dead, broken, bloody. There’s chocolate ice cream melted into the ground around it, maybe on it. She giggles as her eyes water. “I’m gonna have to get you new ice cream.”

“No you’re not,” Dani says, exasperated. “You’re gonna stay right here and get better. Jeezy petes, Aubrey.”

“The deer’s still there,” she mumbles, blinking her eyes quickly.

“I’ll deal with it when I go back down,” Duck says. “It’s okay, Aubrey. It was an accident.”

“But I killed it,” she says quietly. “And it suffered.”

“You’re okay, though. And it’s dead, yeah. But that’s nature.” Duck says. “Things die in those woods all the time and it’s natural. And maybe you expedited the process a little bit, but it’s fine. You’re fine.”

She doesn’t give him a response, just sits back and scrunches her face up, willing herself not to cry.

“Do you need anything?” Barclay asks. “I’m pretty sure that cream cheese is bad by now, so bagels are out. But I can make something if you want it.”

“There’s coconut flakes in the bag,” she says, and he hops up and grabs them, pulling on the open tab and handing the bag to her. She munches on the flakes, keeps her body tense, doesn’t cry. Dani slumps onto her good shoulder, resting her head there gently.

Time blends for a bit. Barclay and Duck chat quietly and Jake brings her a glass of water. Dani grabs some coconut flakes out of the bag and eats with her, the quiet sound of chewing filling the air.

“What’re you talking about?” She asks, straining to hear them.

“You don’t gotta worry about it,” Duck says. “Just some stuff about your arm.”

“I’m an adult, you know,” she says. “You don’t have to be all hush hush about my injuries.”

“I just wanna know that it’s not badly broken,” Duck says, sounding tired. “That’s all. We’re not ‘gossiping’ about you hitting a deer, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She slumps back into the couch, relaxing, a little embarrassed. Neither of them are mean like that, she knows that. But her head is still dizzy and thinking is a little hard, so she’ll forgive herself this one time for mixing up how her friends think.

“Thanks,” she mutters out, still munching on coconut flakes.

“What for?” Duck asks, obviously confused.

“Stopping, picking me up. I dunno. Not leaving me there.”

“Do you think I would do that?”

She looks up at him and he looks a little horrified. “No! No, no way. I know you wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful about it.”

“Christ, Aubrey. I don’t think anyone in Kepler woulda left you there like that. You didn’t look okay in any sense of the word. I mean, you were lying on the ground not really moving with your helmet off, your bike on the ground, and a deer all messed up behind you. It didn’t really look like a good scene.”

She hums, pressing her head onto Dani’s. He’s probably right. It probably looked like she got seriously injured or worse. She is lucky it’s just this, staying connected to her bike with the bag like she was. Her helmet helped for sure. If this is what her head’s like with it having been on, she doesn’t want to know what would have happened if it was off.

“Still, thanks,” she says after a while. “I dunno what I would’ve done otherwise.”

“You’re welcome, if it makes you feel any better,” he says. It does make her feel better. He didn’t have to stop. He could have kept going and she would’ve been none the wiser. But he stopped and she’s glad.

“Get some rest,” Barclay says. “Try not to think too hard. We’ll make sure everything’s alright.”

Aubrey settles back in, grabbing a coconut flake and eating it absently. She definitely could have gotten seriously injured, more so than she is now. The deer’s dead, and it hurt and it suffered, but it’s dead. She killed it. It’s fine, maybe. Probably not. She’ll definitely feel awful about it for a while.

Dani holds Aubrey’s hand in hers, rubbing a thumb over the fleshy skin between her thumb and she relaxes, closing her eyes. It’s fine right now. She can feel fine right now.

There’s time to deal with the rest of it later.

**Author's Note:**

> me @ me: hey! lets work on some balance fics. you got a couple in the works, maybe we finish the next one in ur angus series!  
> my terrible brain: no balance, only angsty aubrey fics.  
> I mean, this is what it is now i guess. I swear im working on balance fics. Also I'm back at college so timing and workload and inspiration are all one wild jumble rn. I keep getting hit with a bunch of aubrey inspo so i guess i gotta roll with that until it drops i guess.  
> also the big inspiration for this is that i hit a deer this summer. looked up what that wouldve been like on a bike and wala. this came out  
> comment if you liked! :3c


End file.
